There are many reasons I would recommend reading The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards by Jessica Waite. Despite the tongue-in-cheek catchy title, it’s a true story that includes love, deception, mental illness, and redemption.  It is also an example of excellent writing by a Canadian author from Calgary, Alberta with elements of the paranormal and spiritualism tossed in for your added pleasure.

How would you react if you discovered after your beloved husband’s death that he was nothing like the man you had spent the last twenty years of your life with? The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards is Jessica Waite’s real-life story of assimilating and accepting her feelings of betrayal, rage, confusion, and grief. How can the world’s best dad and an intelligent, loving husband deceive his family, his employer, his coworkers, and his friends so thoroughly for so many years?

Jessica met Sean Waite when they were both working as English teachers in Japan after graduating from university. What initially seemed like an odd attraction developed into a deep and trusting relationship. When they returned to Canada they married and began life in Calgary. Like most young couples, the Waites bought a home, had a baby, acquired a couple of dogs, did renovations, and generally cultivated their family and social life in the community.

Sean was an intelligent, driven, somewhat compulsive young man who excelled at everything he took on. When health issues sidelined Jessica his business success enabled him to support the family as the sole breadwinner while still enjoying a somewhat privileged and comfortable lifestyle. His business activities required that he travel frequently so Jessica was often left alone to raise their young son, Dash.

One November day in 2015 while Sean was waiting at Denver airport for his flight home to Calgary, he suffered a massive and fatal heart attack. He was only forty-seven years old. Jessica’s world came crashing down in ways she could never have imagined. As she moved through the motions of planning and managing a funeral, supporting her nine-year-old son who had just lost his father, and tackling the mountain of paperwork and organization that follows a death, she uncovered another side of her husband’s life that she had no idea existed in their twenty years as a couple.

We acknowledge that no marriage is perfect, but Sean Waite was not a bigamist. He was not a criminal and he had not been a bad husband or father. What Jessica discovered to her horror, however, was that he was a philanderer, a cheater, a porn addict, and a liar. His compulsive tendencies were far worse and more dangerous than she had witnessed in their daily domestic life. Sean’s death left Jessica bereft, possibly broke, and seriously doubting whether she truly knew the man she had loved and lived with all those years. Did he love her or was their entire marriage a sham?

Waite tries a variety of therapies to cope with her loss and betrayal and offers many words of wisdom. “Counseling is like setting a broken bone: it doesn’t take the pain away, but it puts things in place so eventually they’ll heal properly.” I found her experience and advice to be reassuring for a variety of life’s surprises. And, as a reader, I appreciate the opportunity to support a female Canadian author.

It’s tempting to think that this kind of thing could never happen to us but it can affect unsuspecting women like ourselves. None of us is above being deceived by someone we love. The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards is a must-read. Jessica Waite has an important story to tell and does so eloquently and with a measure of love for her late husband. I think perhaps the only thing that could have improved my reading experience would have been a few pictures of the family at the end. I could not put this book down and I am confident you will have the same response if you read it. We all have something to learn from her story.

If you are unable to obtain The Widow’s Guide To Dead Bastards by Jessica Waite at your local bookstore or library, click on this link to have it delivered directly to your door or tablet from Amazon.

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